I was skeptical when I heard that Douglas Coupland's latest book was a hot read. I mean, he basically started all this business about Generation X with his book of the same title. In fact, I made a promise to myself that if I ever met this Coupland fellow in person, I'd give him a piece of my mind. X this, X that - simply put, I've been Generation X-ed to death.
A good friend of mine recommended the book to me. He said that he really identified with its characters - he could have sworn that their childhood anecdotes could have been lifted from his own adolescence. I grew up with this friend and we shared much concerning the days of our youth, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt and picked up Coupland's Microserfs (HarperCollins, 371 pages).
As far as plot is concerned, it doesn't seem to be the main focus of the book. What little plot there is concerns the lives of a half-dozen or so Microsoft employees who meet a couple interesting characters and go on to form their own company - no big deal. But what makes this book so special, and personally so important, are the anecdotal tangents the plot takes from time to time. Here we really understand the foundation of each of the characters - which is probably the single most satisfying aspect of the book. The actions and interactions of the characters are reminiscent of many recurring themes in Generation X today: god's role (if any) in the universe, the increasing power of computers - on a lighter side, the idea of Òhaving a life,Ó and the idea of accepting label of ÒnerdÓ (and noting the increasing popularity of nerd culture).
We learn quickly that the characters in the book are, frankly, nerds. They grew up during the formative years of the home computer age, namely the late 70s early 80s genre of Pong, Atari, Space Invaders, and Pac-Man. They represent the first generation in which the computer was a permanent fixture - be it ancient Commodore Pets or the first IBM PC or even those medieval Odyssey contraptions. They spent their childhoods surrounded by computers, learned to take them for granted, and as a result, computers are very much an aspect of the character's lives.
They also grew up around Dungeons and Dragons, and more importantly, Lego. I identify with the Lego especially; I had literally thousands of the modular bricks, and I'd spend hours searching for the perfect brick for the perfect place in the perfect Lego construction.
Without disclosing too much of the story, the characters' new company works to create virtual reality software roughly equivalent to an electronic Lego set. Coupland's use of the Lego metaphor is great - after all, Lego is highly metaphorical - but he manipulates it with perfection. Look out for sterility, universality, and fun-for-all-ages representation in the funny little blocks. And Coupland's comments on the Lego minifigs are priceless.
Why did this hit home for me? I guess that I've never really read anything that I could identify with as much as this. While I wasn't what you'd call a prototypical nerd, my childhood was centered around nerdy things like Lego and computers and imagination intensive activities like role playing games. Nonetheless, the problems in my life paled in comparison with those of the characters in the book (i.e. I am far, far from having a nervous breakdown), but to read about characters that strongly resemble oneself is fun (if not scary) in any event.
Coupland delves deeply into the cyber-culture (to be quite clichŽ) of today's society. With little quips here and there about Bill Gates and his power at Microsoft, Coupland captures the sentiments of many of today's technophiles. His prose style is cyber-esque as well, including e-mail exchanges between characters and journal entries from the main character's computer diary. This is especially interesting (take note pop culture freaks) because Coupland represents the diary as it would appear on a computer screen, and the entries are item or phrase based rather than sentence based. In short, Coupland's imaginative use of prose is effective and enjoyable, and while I wouldn't label it vanguard, it certainly strectches the traditional English prose paradigm.
After finishing Microserfs, I approached Coupland with a newfound respect. After all, he did start this whole Gen X thing, and love it or hate it, at the very least he deserves credit for that fact alone. And while other writers and journalists jump on the X bandwagon, Coupland could have simply chose to sit back and ride the crest; however, he has chosen to once again break new ground and focus on a subsection of Gen X culture: nerds and techno-heads. MR